Synopsis

Branding is more than a great logo. A brand is the essence of an organization--its DNA--impacting its continual success. It is absolutely essential to get it right.

Brand managers, marketers, and executives have long turned to this trusted guide to troubleshoot their branding problems. Written by an acknowledged expert with 30 years of experience building world-class brands, Brand Aid covers topics ranging from research and positioning to brand equity management and architecture strategy.

Bringing together illuminating case studies, best practices, and the latest research, this edition offers invaluable advice on every aspect of brand management including:

A treasure trove of techniques, templates, and rules of thumb, Brand Aid is the ideal resource for anyone responsible for building their organization's brand.

Excerpt

What is a brand, really? in my thirty-plus years working in this industry, I’ve observed the following: Every brand is a promise, and everything is a brand—from products and services to institutions and communities.

Building, maintaining, and growing a brand was once all about trust. and trust is something that is earned over time and performance. So the challenge used to be simpler: Demonstrate what your brand believes in, then prove it over time through actions across all touchpoints.

Today, the challenges of building a brand are more complex. We’re now short-term thinkers, in chase of the next shiny object. Our time is limited. Our attention spans are even shorter. Additionally, the ecosystem in which brands live has evolved. It’s a barter system. To get what we need from the consumer, we have to give them something, too. We have to give them a meaningful experience. To that end, we barter with entertainment, utility, and shared values. the entertainment and utility bring them into the brand, and the shared values make them stay.

So the key to engaging and inspiring consumers today is to make a brand stand for something bigger than its products, to make it share a cultural relativity that connects on a deeper level.

As chief executive of Partners + Napier, an ad agency with offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Rochester, New York, I’ve had the privilege to work with many great brands through a lot of different stages. As a consequence, I’ve read countless books on the subject of launching, growing, and building brands.

This new edition contains all the bits of wisdom and insight Brad has garnered as a veteran of branding, as well as new insights and in-depth information on all the new influences that have exploded in the evolving brand landscape in recent years—from the analytic, such as the importance of big data and social media, to the more fundamental humanistic elements, such as storytelling, social responsibility, and meeting basic human needs.